Ever wanted to bring back native birds and plants to your local area? It's very difficult to do on your own, but how do you go about making it a community effort? Schools are a focal point for many communities and many people like to help with projects initiated by their school. Can you come up with a vision and a plan? Do you need experts to help, and are they in your local community or do you need to reach out further? Do you have a suitable location? Do you need permission?

On this field trip, during Conservation Week, you will go to Tiromoana Bush and follow its journey and see what the future will look like. You will learn how the restoration project started, as well as who has been involved and why. You will discover what people think about Tiromoana Bush and its associated walkway, then come up with a rating which demonstrates the value of Tiromoana Bush as a community project and community amenity.

To prepare for this field trip, LEARNZ content will support inquiry into:

Where you will go

Tiromoana Bush makes up most of the valley immediately below the Kate Valley landfill in North Canterbury. The valley drains out to the Pacific Ocean and was once covered in thick coastal forest before being cleared for farmland. Now, TransWaste Canterbury is undertaking an ecological restoration project to re-introduce native plants, restoring wetland and forest habitats. Native plants will provide habitat for native birds and other native species to repopulate the area. The Tiromoana Bush walkway already provides stunning views out over the Pacific Ocean but will increasingly be a more "New Zealand" experience as the native plant and animal populations increase. Tirimoana Bush is planned to be an asset to the community, for generations.

Teacher comments about related field trips

"Students interested, good to have Māori view, overall great learning for kids. Relevant and NZ based learning about the Living World and conservation."Robyn Bennett from Stanmore Bay School

"Authentic context and linked to our inquiry for term 2. Useful for promoting Key Competencies - we used thinking, managing self, participating and contributing."Kathleen McIsaac from Cambridge East School

"Perfect as we were exploring Predator Free NZ as an inquiry unit. Great to see the relevance of our tracking and trapping in our local school bush area. Good that our kids also saw that people have paid jobs doing this work. It's real-life stuff!"Louise Peirce from Korokoro School

Learning Areas/Levels

Science: Living World Levels 2-4, Planet Earth and Beyond Levels 2-4; Social Sciences: Social Studies Levels 2-5; Social Studies: Place and Environment Levels 2-4, Continuity and Change Levels 2-4

Vision, Values, Key Competencies, Principles, Literacy and Numeracy

By their nature, LEARNZ field trips integrate with the higher levels of the NZ Curriculum. Participation encourages development of the Key Competencies around Thinking, Using language, symbols and text,
Managing self, Relating to others, and Participating and contributing. Teachers indicate this in testimonials.
LEARNZ field trips have support and activities for Literacy, with opportunities to develop skills in Listening, Reading and Viewing and in Speaking, Writing and Presenting. More about LEARNZ as a Reading Resource and student writing opportunities with LEARNZ.
Select LEARNZ field trips have support and activities for Numeracy, encouraging the development of skills in Number and Algebra, in Statistics and in Geometry and Measurement.

ESOL

As well as providing visual and audio material and access to real experiences, LEARNZ links well to ESOL Principles, especially
Principle 3 Maintain and make explicit the same learning outcomes for all the learners.
How can I make the lesson comprehensible to all students?
How can I plan the learning tasks so that all the students are actively involved?
Do my students understand the learning outcomes?Principle 4 Begin with context embedded tasks which make the abstract concrete. How can I put these concepts into a concrete context?

What's in a Field Trip

Every LEARNZ field trip has its own newly-built, self-contained web site ready for integration into your teaching and learning programme.
Teacher Support has curriculum integration, resources, newsletters, support and evaluation.
Prepare Students provides opportunities for student inquiry on two sets of image-rich background pages at reading levels 2 years apart,
(students can click to have those pages read to them out loud), online interactive and other activities to check students' understanding, and a glossary.
During the field trip there are live tweets on twitter, and daily additions such as a diary, video clips,
profiles of the experts (ideal careers education), a photo gallery, and ambassador (mascot) page updates.
Live web conferences via Adobe Connect enable teachers to managed students putting prepared and spontaneous questions to experts (recorded for replay).
After the field trip, teachers are encouraged to take further action with their class in the community or to go on a related field trip,
or to invite a guest speaker, or to present what they have learned to a wider group.
Teachers also fill in an online evaluation (more about reflective practice),
the field trip prize winner is drawn, and the final newsletter is sent. Content remains online for continued use.

How teachers use LEARNZ

View teacher comments in testimonials and in the LEARNZ Group on the VLN. There are two main ways teachers use a LEARNZ virtual field trip with their class.
Firstly, a LEARNZ field trip is ideally an immersive, engaging, synchronous, online learning experience with real-time components and a myriad of opportunities for teachers and students.
Secondly, and less ideal but still effective, a LEARNZ field trip can be used as a retrospective experience where the resources
such as photos, text, activities, videos and audioconferences/web conferences comprise a unique collection of authentic, contemporary New Zealand teaching and learning material.

What Now

Not Registered with LEARNZ? Are you a New Zealand Registered or Provisionally-Registered Teacher?
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Already Registered with LEARNZ and activated your account? Log in to your personal MyLEARNZ Control Panel and then enrol your classes at no cost in field trips. Note: Enrolment is only needed for the current and future year's field trips.

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